Australia Set to Become a Global Warming Leader With Howard's Expected Election Defeat

Australia Set to Become a Global Warming Leader With Howard's Expected Election Defeat

Three days ahead of an Australian general election, front-running Labor leader, Kevin Rudd has committed to immediately signing the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, describing it as the “number one” priority.

Australian's have been experiencing first hand the effects of a warmer planet with massive drought. Instead of taking a leadership role on the issue, soon-to-be former Prime Minister John Howard ducked the Kyoto Protocol and only acknowledged the threat of climate change when it appeared to be the politically expedient thing to do.

Looks like the Australian citizenry easily saw through Howard's ruse, the latest polls show Rudd is set to win with 54 per cent of the vote compared to Mr Howard's 46 per cent.

Previous Comments

Encourage everyone you know to flood their MP’s inbox with copies if the IPCC summary report. I want to know that every single parliamentarian has read it. We can’t do anything about Bish, but it’s open season on Harper’s caucus!

And re: Geoff’s comments below, I agree that paper mail gets more attention. As for a big march on Parliament Hill prior to the Bali meeting, it would work a lot better if we didn’t have to cope with the snow. There wouldn’t be near as large a turn-out. It’s also not as effective visually to be talking AGW standing there shivering!

But surely there is SOMETHING that can be done to get their attention? Ideas, folks? This is a pretty smart crowd (with certain notable exceptions). We should be able to come up with something?

To be honest, I’m not certain that flooding the MP’s e-mail boxes will have that great of an effect. Certainly writing to them in person by hand, while it does use paper, tends to have a greater impact I have found.

Even better would be a public protest in advance of the Bali meetings next month. Does anyone know if something like this is being planned? Do people think that large-scale marches in support of concrete measures to reduce greenhouse gases would succeed in Canada?

This, unlike AGW, is quite uncertain to me. Several years ago, when it was clear that the Mission was not Accomplished in Iraq, the WMD reasons for going there were thoroughly debunked, and their was an air of rebellion against the status quo Down Under, I was surprised that Howard won fairly handily. I’ll wait a few days before counting this turkey (Howard) out. Happy Thanksgiving to our American friends; and here’s to the Aussies’ futures – I hope you cook Howard’s goose.

posting this just a few hours before the polls close in Australia. I’m hoping that desmog is right about rudd winning. Yes, he is expected to, but Howard has confounded us all before, and the polls this morning showed a much closer gap. So I’m also hoping that my caution in this post will look stupid in the face of a Labour landslide.

Rudd still has a ways to go on his climate policy, but it’ll be a relief to have a government which doesn’t have the coal industry running its climate sceptic policies.

If he gets in, he’s going to Bali. The US will be isolated as being the only industrialised country outside Kyoto.

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=121576
I found the subtle differences between the national post and cbc coverage of this story to be interesting. But neither supported ZOG’s claim that they voted for Rudd and his party in spite of his support for Kyoto, etc.

Well clearly my concerns about Howard were unfounded - he’s even lost his own seat by the look of it.

To counter a few misconceptions. According to a substantive exit poll run by Sky News, http://www2.skynews.com.au/election07/article.aspx?id=202773,

“When asked to name their top two issues, 12 per cent named health and hospitals, while 11 per cent named the economy. The environment and climate change scored 8 per cent, while industrial relations was also weighing on voters minds, also named by 8 per cent of respondents.”

Iraq was way down the list at 4%.

So climate change (and Howard’s non-ratification) seems as though it was RIGHTUPTHERE in people’s minds, well ahead of Iraq. And the difference between Howard and Rudd on climate is that Rudd will ratify Kyoto. Bye bye the AP6 coal pact?

The key issue was a hugely unpopular “work choice” programme Howard introduced, which undermines union power, and which Rudd opposed.

So Zog, unless you’ve suddenly become an Australian pollster, you’re dead wrong.

Don’t be a dickhead, Femack. You know very well who a lot of them are, especially since this blog is largely devoted to throwing dung at them. For starters, take Lindzen, Patterson, Clark, Gray, Baliunis, Spencer, Soon … If you can’t come up with a list of at least 50 high profile sceptics, you haven’t been paying attention.

Now you can amuse yourself by describing the few that I mentioned as ignorant, incompetent and on the take, since that’s the way warmists’ minds seem to work.

ZOG, you were asked to provide the names of CREDIBLE scientists. There is a strong disconnect between credible and liars and all the other epithets I can use to describe your list of pitiful people. They have no consciences. I sincerely hope that once things get as bad as predicted these people will be found guilty of crimes against humanity because that is exactly what they are doing.

I thought perhaps you had someone new up your sleeve I hadn’t heard about. This is the same list of people who have been hammering the same tired points for years, and I have seen all of their arguments handily dismantled by other scientists (their peers, not me).

As for your rather nasty name-calling, please restrain yourself. There are ladies present. That kind of remark is completely inappropriate and does nothing to advance the discussion. Go to your room.

No, I did not say “Nyah, Nyah, Nyah, those guys don’t know anythin’.” I have looked at both sides of the argument, I’ve done the reading. I’m sorry, but your credible scientists have not convinced me of their position. How much more “adult” about it can I be?

…what do they know? What valid non-buffet science do they have? I’ve read a lot of their “stuff” and I constantly find they leave things out, cherry-pick, mis-quote, take-out-of-context, change their conclusions when pinned down, don’t show complete graphs, outright lie…the list goes on and on…You worship tin gods that only tell you what you want to hear. We need a Winston Churchill, not a series of Vichy French generals…
I can’t speak for the others, but I don’t consider myself in the schoolyard, I’m actually in the school trying to learn the total extent of AGW and you seem to be the one out in the schoolyard with the dropouts.
And you still didn’t answer my questions.
You remember….the ones about 200 million tons of Australian coal and an astrophysicist studying polar bears.

Hardly.
I live in a small 2 bedroom block house.
It’s not much, but it’s mine.
I’ve gutted it, reframed it, rebuild it and I have broken nails, pulled slivers, earned scars, but it’s mine.
I’ve shingled roofs, been at the bottom of a well digging muck.
I’ve worked since I was seventeen and still in school.
I’ve changed engines and transmissions in dump trucks using an oak tree for a hoist.
I’ve rebuilt bulldozer final drives, changed clutches, rebuilt driveshafts, welded new floors into dumpbodies, rebuilt dozer tracks and engines.
I’ve pounded the land on an old farm tractor from dawn to dusk to get hard clay ready for planting when a relative was behind and in danger of losing his year.
For 8 years I loaded rail cars with containers or truck trailers for CP Rail.
30 years ago I drove my first transport truck and I’m still doing it. At the moment I run every week day between Toronto and Windsor Ontario and play with an eightwheeler in Toronto rush hour traffic.
I’ve lost part of my hearing from listening to the beat of diesel engines, I’ve broken bones, smashed thumbs, tore ligments, sliced open my hide on or around heavy equipment all my life. I’m 56 years old and have 9 years to go…..
I’ve left a lot of sweat, some blood and I hate to admit it, but a large carbon trail behind me.
I’m as blue-collar as you can, so don’t you dare call me a parasitic organism!

And your supercilious sneer about the “bottom line” identifies you as an ivory tower type who doesn’t give a s–t about people. Most Aussies have gotten into the habit of living comfortably and actually (horrors!) eating three times a day.

Tell me, Tom, have you ever had a real job or are you a social parasite living off of the efforts of better men? Ever get your hands dirty? Ever “despoiled nature” to honestly earn a paycheck and provide some of the real wealth (food, metals, oil, coal, fish etc.) that keeps society alive? Thought not. High tech is supposed to save us all, if well-meaning crazies manage to cripple the economy but, even in the space age, food, energy and basic raw materials will always be needed - something that the ideologically pure never seem to think about.

And no, I don’t count Australia’s coal exports as part of its miniscule CO2 output. That CO2 is already mostly on Japan’s ledger. (Not that it makes any difference in the real world.)

And no, I certainly don’t give a whit about AGW because, as regular posters here are aware, I file that field of investigation right beside paranormal phenomena, creationism and space abductions: pseudoscientific nonsense to feed gullible fools and make hypocritical con-artists, like Suzuki and Gore, wealthy. Bah! Humbug!

Hey Zog, you seem to have become more strident than you were in the good ol’ days. Maybe that’s my misperception. But I do remember when you seemed to have a more open mind. I’m not sure that you’ve been treated entirely fairly here, and maybe you’ve compared AGW to creationism just because you’re upset … but if you really think so, perhaps visiting here isn’t the best use of your time (or anyone else’s).PS. Please stop pushing the idea that global economies will collapse due to CO2 restrictions; we all know that it’s not too hard to turn the taps back on.

But Steve, until the taps get turned back on, there’ll be a lot of needless misery and, possibly, a lot of needless bloodshed in countries that don’t have any room for downward movement. That’s not idle nightmaring; there are several countries on the verge of blowing up, even in their current buggered up but still liveable (barely) situation.

Tom: Sorry for misidentifying you as an elitist limousine liberal, and possibly a pampered student with no real world experience. Your “bottom line” reference really threw me off course.

about it being late and a bit too vitriolic, but I think this point doesn’t get made enough:

A process gave the most marginal countries a free pass wrt emissions targets. That was attacked by some because it was seen as penalizing the rich via a socialist wealth transfer to the 3rd world. The process also provided flexibility to the 1st world on how to meet their targets (and no penalties for failing), which included funding of projects to increase energy efficiency in the poor countries (and these could include subsidization of companies based in the rich countries). Now how was that attacked? It was said – by the same naysayers who called the process a draconian, communist plot – that it wouldn’t reduce emissions enough to make a difference. Can you see how such shifting positions make it impossible to have a rational discussion?

To sum up, the Kyoto Protocol and other agreements for emissions-reduction targets are said to be too harmful to the poor, or, no, unfairly penalize the rich, and to be too draconian in general, or, no, to be too lenient. That those who oppose such a process simultaneously hold each of those positions should tell folks that the process worked out quite well. The price of oil has risen around 50% in the last short while. Some people in some countries have been strongly affected. Compare this unexpected volatility to something like a steadily increasing, predictable tax that can be tuned to dampen oil price volatility, while reducing income tax and I think you’ll find … well, I won’t suggest what your conclusions should be.

Steve, I forgot to mention that I do indeed place creation “science” and AGM science in the same box. I think that I mentioned that a year or more ago. Actually, when they get off onto probability theory, some of their PhDs sound as reasonable as Hensen. (Faint praise button off.)

I was just looking at preliminary Australian election results, and their urban-rural split looks a lot like the metropolitan-everybody-else split in Canada. The cockies and resource diggers voted Liberal Coalition (pretty much the same as our Conservatives) and the cities where most of the people live went solidly Labour (somewhere between our Liberals and the NDP).

Huh, I thought I remembered you wanting to think about stratospheric cooling at some point as a prediction made by AGW theory (and confirmed). [A stark difference between ‘creation science’ and AGW science is that the latter produces testable hypotheses.] But it seems that you have no objectivity on the issue – you just slander without providing any supportive evidence (there are entire websites supporting the denigration of AGW denial arguments) – and I don’t think I have anything more to learn from you. BTW, not surprising about the rural/urban split … you should note that AGW and evolutionary theory both enjoy more support in urban areas (you’re probably the only one putting them in the same box). Goodbye.

ZOG, I actually think it’s a good idea to have a ‘sceptic-supporter’ to list who they think is credible. It would be even better if that list included the work that each has done to warrant such an appraisal. Further, I think it would be helpful if the ‘sceptics’ disassociated themselves from the most obvious fraudsters. You’ve previously agreed that Tim Ball makes you cringe. Any others? Knowing who among the AGW deniers the ‘credible’ AGW deniers consider to be fraudsters might prevent the ‘consensus-side’ from inappropriate baiting. Unfortunately, the ‘credible sceptics’ have done little to distinguish themselves from those who taint their ‘society.’

Hey, I didn’t say that he “makes me cringe”. On my cringe meter he isn’t close to, for example, Hansen. Ball’s a very smart guy but his ego seems to get the best of him. I’ll never understand why he kited his c.v., when the unembelished one is certainly nothing to sneeze at. Unlike Suzuki y cia, he’s not making a killing on the AGW contoversy (travel expenses only, when he was associated with FoS, which seems to have cut him loose), so he doesn’t qualify as a “fraudster” - just a man with a mission who keeps going and going and going.

What’s your source of information for saying Ball is “not making a killing on the AGW contoversy (travel expenses only, when he was associated with FoS.”? How much does he get for his NRSP gig, and for writing crappy articles with Tom Harris for some crappy rightwing website?

ZOG, these names are not credible in terms of AGW. Their peer-reviewed publishing record is so scarce in terms of the AGW that the Dr. Andrew Weaver whom you smeared earlier has a longer peer-reviewed list on AGW than the seven you mentioned combined. And ZOG, if you are trying to include the “journal” Energy and Environment, it does not count as it is not recognized by the ISI as a peer-reviewed journal.

I don’t know how we got off onto this tangent but, since you mention it, only a handful of the oft-cited 2,000(?) members had anything whatsoever to do with the IPCC report, and some lead authors abandoned ship years ago rather than allow their names to be associated with the outcomes.

Lindzen’s appraisal when he left was rather telling: “The report was written before the research was done.”

Sorry, Zog. When you make a statement like I file that field of investigation [AGW] right beside paranormal phenomena, creationism and space abductions: pseudoscientific nonsense to feed gullible fools and make hypocritical con-artists, like Suzuki and Gore, wealthy, I have to accept that I am wasting my time here and get back to what I was doing.

Just to be clear, I am not a gullible fool. I am a reasonably intelligent and highly skeptical person by nature. I don’t accept every new thing that’s shovelled at me without question. In fact, when one of the people on your list of credible scientists come up with some new pronouncement, I actually take the trouble to follow up & find out what it’s about, who is responding to it and how it’s being received by people capable of reviewing it.

As for your remarks about Suzuki & Gore, it is my experience that people who dismiss them as hypocritical con-artists already disliked them intensely for a variety of reasons long before this issue really heated up over the last few years. That’s prejudice, and not very scientific.

Democracy is utterly dependent upon an electorate that is accurately informed. In promoting climate change denial (and often denying their responsibility for doing so) industry has done more than endanger the environment. It has undermined democracy.

There is a vast difference between putting forth a point of view, honestly held, and intentionally sowing the seeds of confusion. Free speech does not include the right to deceive. Deception is not a point of view. And the right to disagree does not include a right to intentionally subvert the public awareness.